On Tuesday 13 May, the EU Council and the European Parliament reached a trilogue agreement on new rules to ensure the completeness, coherence and comparability of statistics collected on population and housing at EU level, the Council said in a press release.
This new legal framework aims to improve the overall quality of statistics on population and housing by introducing a harmonised definition of the term “population”, facilitating access to data sources and rationalising and improving statistical production in this area.
“For the purposes of this Regulation, the basic population consists of all persons having their usual residence within the Union in a given territorial unit of a Member State at national, regional, local or network level on the reference date”, the definition thus stipulates.
The new rules also provide for the collection of data on “hard-to-reach” populations, such as the homeless or people with disabilities, in order to prevent social and economic inequalities, and more accessible data on the energy efficiency of buildings to facilitate the ecological transition. In order to combat intersectional discrimination, data will henceforth have to be broken down by gender, age and disability, and, where appropriate, by nationality, socio-economic status and other parameters.
The agreement has yet to be formally confirmed by the two parties. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)